Barr: Pay your petitioners

Over the years, I’ve met many libertarians in different places. In July 2000, it was my pleasure to drive from Texas to London, Ontario (yes, driving to the one in UK would have been more difficult) to meet quite a few. It was there at a conference of the International Society for Individual Liberty that I met Lynn Atherton and her husband Roger Bloxham.

As with most libertarian relationships, our friendship has waxed and waned. We’ve been out of touch for times, and back in touch at others. Nevertheless, we’ve always had a pleasant relationship, based on mutual respect and trust.

Among my many regrets with respect to my ventures in Somalia going so badly awry, due to NATO intervention, was not getting a chance to put Roger’s dry dock technology to work for mutual benefit. The airport we were planning near our sea port would also, likely, have gotten a visit from Roger in one of his home built airplanes. These things were not to be. Many of our conversations include reminiscences.

But, recently, one was about a friend of Lynn’s from Oklahoma. Angela O’Dell had been hired to do ballot access work for the Barr campaign in West Virginia. I gather she is owed several thousand dollars for work actually performed. Moreover, she had contacted Shane Cory of the Barr campaign, who attempted to assure her that she would be paid.

Thus far she has not been paid. Lately, she has come to regret her choice in not making an issue of this matter during the campaign. Happily, just because the election is over doesn’t mean that the Barr campaign wraps up and goes away. They still have money – possibly even some donations still coming in. After they pay their debts, my understanding of federal election law is that the candidate gets to put in his pocket the remaining money. I’ve no idea how much that might be.

Anyway, it seems likely that this obligation doesn’t go away even if the campaign does. So, I am doing my part to help Angela get her money. It is also my intention, here, to continue to make clear to the libertarian community what kind of a guy Shane Cory is. I think we all know he was asked to resign as executive directrix of the LP when he began campaigning against Mary Ruwart while still in his job. He did resign, though the payments to him didn’t stop. I don’t believe he was ever censured for his part in the Andrew Davis press release calling for more federal spending.

As well, I think we all know what Shane said to one of the Campaign for Liberty organisers after the Barr snubgate fiasco. Those words were “go f#ck yourself.”

So, I don’t think he’s much of a man. I doubt he has anything like honor. But, he does have other people to report to. And he might be shamed into paying Angela. That would be nice.

Obviously, she’s asked to be paid. She’s offered to accept a partial payment with more to come later. She’s tried to work with the campaign on a payment plan. It isn’t much money to them – they had money to spend on limousine services to quite a hefty figure. But it is a lot of money to her. And wouldn’t it be nice to see her get paid?

Volunteers and paid petitioners do a lot of the heavy lifting for this community. They go out and get signatures on petitions. They go out and get voters to register for our parties. They go out and face the cops in places, get arrested at times, and do a lot of actual physical work – manning tables, moving things around to set up petition tables, talking for hours on end to people who are interested. They are our faces to the public.

So it would really be nice to treat them decently. It is really shameful that wretched men like Shane Cory get to screw decent, hard working individuals like Angela out of their pay. It is fraud, it is theft, and it is initiatory force.

It isn’t like Shane can do the right thing at this point without apologising for his misconduct and making an act of contrition. He got paid by the campaign, right? For all we know, he was hired and working for the campaign while still executive directrix. We certainly know that he was acting on behalf of one of the candidates for the nomination while he was paid to work for all the members of the party. So we know he’s unethical and sleazy in this way. And we cannot expect that he’s missed a pay check from the Barr campaign.

Angela has suffered. She did the work to get the money, not because the work is grand, not because West Virginia is a desirable destination resort community, but because she needed the money. And she hasn’t been paid. That’s wrong. And it is Shane’s fault. Shane should not only apologise, he should reach into his pocket to pay her interest on the funds she has had to make do without.

For my part, I would like to see him crawl on his hands and knees over broken glass from his home to hers as a thorough going act of contrition. Since I don’t expect him to do so, I don’t intend to forgive him. But I’m tough that way.